Journal of Education and Practice www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1735 (Paper) ISSN 2222-288X (Online) Vol.8, No.24, 2017 72 The Effect of Group Counseling Program on Dealing with School Exhaustion of 7 th Grade Students Assistant Professor Doctor Pervin Nedim Bal 1 * Assistant Professor Doctor Yildiz Bilge 2 1. Ibn Haldun University, Faculty of Educational sciences, Psychological Counseling and Guidance Department, Istanbul, Turkey 2. Health Sciences University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Child Development Department, Istanbul, Turkey Abstract In this research, the effect of Group Counseling Program on coping with school exhaustion was investigated. The study was conducted with 7 th grade students attending Private Bogazici Educational Center in Bakirkoy, Istanbul during 2016-2017 academic year. “the School Burnout Scale for the Second Level of Primary Education”, which was developed by Aypay (2011) was used to assess school exhaustion levels. Sixteen (8 males and 8 females) out of 96 students with high school exhaustion levels and willing to participate in the study was selected randomly. 8 of them were randomly assigned as experimental group (4 males and 4 females) and the other 8 students were randomly assigned as control group. In this research, pre-test post-test control group design was used. In the study, group counseling was applied to the experimental group for 8 weeks and no treatment was given to the control group. For the analysis of the data, Mann-Whitney-U test was used for intra- group comparison; and Wilcoxon test was used for inter-group comparison. As a result, it was found that group counseling program was effective in decreasing school exhaustion; however, it was not effective in family originated exhaustion and school inadequacy, which are sub-dimensions of school exhaustion. The results showed that there was a significant difference between pre-test and post-test scores of total exhaustion scores. Obtained data was interpreted and recommendations were given in the scope of the literature. Keywords: school exhaustion, group counseling, 7 th grade students 1. Introduction 1.1. The Concept of Exhaustion The concept of exhaustion (Burnout) is a syndrome in psychology which had first been raised in 1974 by Freudenberger. Freudenberger defines burnout as failure, attrition and exhaustion due to intensive and excessive use of power, energy and other individual resources (Maslach, Schaufeli & Leiter, 2001; Seidman & Zager, 1991; Aypay, 2011). In another study, burnout is defined as follows: “Burnout is defined as a subjective state that results from working for a long time in environments that make strong emotional demands, accompanied by physical exhaustion, feelings of desperation, hopelessness, and disappointment, and the development of a negative self-concept” (Pines,1993 & Altay, 2007). Extreme demands of school and education causes students exhaustion which is called school burnout syndrome. In the education process, stress resulting from courses, the course-load or other sources of psychological pressure may lead to emotional exhaustion, desensitization and feelings of low achievement. School burnout can result in absenteeism, low motivation to study, and high dropout rates, among others (McCarthy & et al., 1990; Yang & Farn, 2005 & Aypay, 2011). Laursen et al. (2010) argue that school culture is crucial in understanding the burnout syndrome and report that peer groups who experience school burnout end up being low-achievers, and what is more, they develop some sort of an antipathy toward high-achievers. Peer groups who are successful in school and experience less burnout, in turn, dislike peer groups who experience more burnout and resist school culture. Findings of Dyrbye et al. (2009) provide clues as to the size of the problems that can be caused by school burnout. They found that about 50% of medical school students developed the burnout syndrome; 10% of this group had suicidal thoughts, and some even made suicide plans (Aypay, 2011). Because the burnout syndrome was initially defined as a work-related phenomenon, there has been some debate on whether students can also experience burnout. Even though studying is not an occupation, basic student activities such as attending classes, performing course-related tasks, succeeding in exams and developing professional decision-making skills can be defined as “work” and are equivalent to “work” (Schaufeli & Taris, 2005; Çapri, & Gunduz & Gokcakan, 2011). Studies on school burnout can be divided into two groups. In the first group are studies that adapt instruments initially developed for use in the context of work life to school environments (Hu & schaufeli, 2009; Salmela-Aro, Kiuru, Leskinen & Nurmi, 2009; Gunduz, Capri, Gokçakan, 2009). The second group consists of studies that use instruments that were developed to measure the burnout syndrome in the context of schools (Aypay, 2011). Dimensions of school burnout in the first group of studies are the same as dimensions of occupational burnout. These dimensions are emotional exhaustion, desensitization, and a diminished sense of personal accomplishment. Studies in the second group were conducted using separate instruments developed for the second level of primary education and for secondary education. In these studies,